"Helper Application"?

[Richard Gaskin]

Bruce Robertson wrote:

>>> Richard Gaskin wrote:
>>>> The RevTalk Dictionary entry for the "environment" function lists
>>>> "helper application" as one of the possible values the function can return:
>>>> 
>>>>    If the environment function returns "helper application",
>>>>    Revolution is running as a helper application, configured
>>>>    by a web browser to display web-based content.
...
>> I've used Rev standalones as helper apps before, but IIRC the app just
>> gets an odoc event when the browser hands it a stack, and the engine
>> doesm't bother to notice whether it was handed the stack from a browser
>> or the Finder.
>> 
>> I suspect this may be a holdover from the olden MC days when it was
>> Unix-only.  Would be nice if there was a way a standalone could
>> distinguish how it was launched, though.  There's a world of
>> opportunities still unexploited with helper apps....
> 
> Yup. Take this technique, and point the custom URL to your Rev app. I'm
> doing it with FileMaker.
> 
> <http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/linktrigger/index.html>

Thanks vor the link.  That's a much better article than the one I got 
started with. :)  I've been using that plist method for OS X, but the 
the mention of "helper application" as a value returned by "the 
environment" in the Rev Dictionary mystified me, so I finally tested 
that function out and see what happens:

As I'd guessed, when a standalone is launched by a browser on both OS X 
and Windows, "the environment" returns "standalone application" and not 
"helper application".

This distinction was probably based on some Unix-specific oddity from 
the mid-90s when "the environment" was added to the engine.  In the 
modern world, apparently a standalone has no way of telling whether it 
was launched by the Finder/Explorer, or a browser.

Filed as RQCC #8322:
<http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=8322>

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
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